Animal Intelligence: The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV.Romanes, George John
Science
Animal Intelligence: The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV.
Romanes, George John
Animal behavior; Animal intelligence
I was sitting one summer's afternoon at an open window
(my bedroom) looking into a garden, when I was
surprised to observe a large and rare species of
spider run across the window-sill in a crouching
attitude. It struck me the spider was evidently
alarmed, or it would not have so fearlessly approached
me. It hastened to conceal itself under the projecting
ledge of the window-sill inside the room, and had
hardly done so when a very fine large hunting wasp
buzzed in at the open window and flew about the room,
evidently in search of something. Finding nothing, the
wasp returned to the open window and settled on the
window-sill, running backwards and forwards as a dog
does when looking or searching for a lost scent. It
soon alighted on the track of the poor spider, and in
a moment it discovered its hiding-place, darted down
on it, and no doubt inflicted a wound with its sting.
The spider rushed off again, and this time took refuge
under the bed, trying to conceal itself under the
framework or planks which supported the mattress. The
same scene occurred here; the wasp now appeared to
follow the spider by sight, but ran backwards and
forwards in large circles like a hound. The moment the
trail of the spider was found the wasp followed all
the turns it had made till it came on it again. The
poor spider was chased from hiding-place to
hiding-place, out of the bedroom, across a passage,
and into the middle of another large room, where it
finally succumbed to the repeated stings inflicted by
the wasp. Rolling itself up into a ball the wasp then
took possession of its prey, and after ascertaining it
could make no resistance, tucked it up under its _very
long hind legs_, just as a hawk or eagle carries off
its quarry, when I interposed and secured both for my
collection.
Mr. Belt, in his work already frequently quoted, gives the following
account of a struggle which not unfrequently occurs between wasps and
ants for the sweet secretion of 'frog-hoppers:'--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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